It was the loveliest of days. Hundreds came out to celebrate the occasion.

Great turnout to celebrate new library groundbreaking.

It was a true Crozetian sort of celebration with music,

Music welcomed attendants.

coffee,

Crozet Mudhouse hand-poured coffee for friends and neighbors.

flags,

Boy Scouts prepared for their procession.

multiple generations,

Wendy Saz, Crozet Library Branch Manager, greeted patrons

and, of course, a few politicians.

Albemarle County Supervisors Duane Snow and Ken Boyd

But the true focus of the day was on building a new library. The first new library building this county has ever built.

Breaking ground for the new Crozet / Western Albemarle Library.

Hurrah!

We are grateful for such great community support from the Boy Scouts, Crozet Mudhouse, Stacey McDonough of Due West Photography. This. Is. Crozet.

Tuesday, June 26th, marks the groundbreaking of the new Crozet / Western Albemarle Library.

It also marks the launch date of our community-based fundraising campaign to raise the funds necessary to transform the Albemarle County-built building into our new library. We are raising money to provide those furnishings — books, shelves, desks, computers, and much more — at an estimated cost of $1.6 million.

From previous fundraising efforts we have more than $120,000 in the Crozet Library Building fund with the non-profit Friends of the JMRL.

We need your help!

We need your donations.

We need your energy to help spread the word to family, friends, neighbors, employers, and more.

We need your volunteer time to help develop and support community-based fundraising.

We need your efforts to help make this library the heart of Crozet’s downtown.

Please, be a part of the story and help build Crozet Library.

To give today, click here.

To volunteer, write buildcrozetlibrary@gmail.com.

At this point we can only guess at the number of people who will be able to attend, so please note this about parking:

Parking at the Groundbreaking.

Musicians will start performing around 11:00 am. The program will begin at 11:30 and last somewhere between thirty and forty-five minutes. Water and coffee (provided by Crozet Mudhouse) will be available. There will be very few chairs — these, again for those who need them.

For those unable to attend the groundbreaking, we will hope to have photos and video available shortly thereafter.

The new Crozet / Western Albemarle Library goundbreaking has been moved forward one day to TUESDAY, June 26th at 11:30 am.

Please join us there to celebrate!

Mark your calendars for Wednesday, June 27th, and join us on-site at 11:30 AM for the official groundbreaking for the new library!

Click to enlarge.

This afternoon around 4:15 BOS Chair Ann Mallek made the motion to accept the lowest construction bid, following county staff recommendations, and to issue a letter of intent to enter into a contract with MB Contractors, Inc. of Roanoke.

The motion was seconded, a vote was called, and the motion passed, 5-1 with only Supervisor Ken Boyd voting against.

Before the vote the staff presented a potential timeline:

1. Sign the contract in May,
2. Break ground in July,
3. Build the library in about 12 months.

As I understand the process, the letter of intent allows the staff to develop the contract with the builders. The contract will come back before the BOS for approval; having approved the letter of intent, my understanding is the precedent has been for the BOS to focus its attention on the content of the contract, not whether the library will be built.

Again — as I understand the process — the new library should break ground this July.

~ ~   Brief interruption for us all to stand up and do a happy dance! ~ ~

Of course there is much work still to be done and funds to be raised to furnish the building. We’ll get to that soon enough.

For now I want to say how much I appreciate your willingness to speak to friends and neighbors, to attend meetings, to stand up at meetings and hearings, to speak at meetings and hearings, to contact the Supervisors directly, to write letters… to do whatever it takes to spread the message that this community needs, supports, and deserves the new library. Thank you so very much.

If you have a minute, following up with a thank you to the Supervisors would be great.

Thank you!

Wednesday, April 4th BOS Agenda:

2:10 p.m. – Action Items:
23. Crozet/Western Albemarle Library – Update on Bids and Budget for Library Project.

This would be a great time to, once again, contact your Supervisors with a brief, but strong message:

Accept this bid — at a significant savings since the BOS approved the construction in 2007 — and build it now.

In an opening meeting at the Albemarle County Office Building on Wednesday, March 28th, attended by construction company representatives, JMRL staff, reporters, and Build Crozet Library supporters, the county staff opened construction bids.

Observers were offered a paper spreadsheet, 11″ x 17″, with bidding company names and the many different parts of the bid already filled in. While county staff opened the envelopes and read out the bids, most of us in the room wrote the dollar amounts into the appropriate spaces (all 121 of them).

As has been reported in the Daily Progress (see the article here), the bids ranged from just under $5.8 million to over $6.9 million. You could compare that to an estimated $8.5 million cost in March, 2007.

After the staff verifies the apparent low bid from MB Contractors, Inc., they will submit it to the Board of Supervisors this week. Here’s what’s next, according to county staff, quoted in the Daily Progress:

Before the project can go forward, county Director of Purchasing Hugh Gravitt said, the supervisors have to approve the project at their meeting next week. If that happens, he said, a contract will be awarded in May, with groundbreaking scheduled for July.

“If it stays on track, those awards should be in May, with notice to proceed in June, with the hope of breaking dirt in July,” he said.

Lilley added that the bids do not guarantee that the project will end up being built.

“Of course, we still need the Board of Supervisors to say that they want to fund it,” Lilley said. “We only have it tentatively funded.”

The supervisors will vote on the final county budget and tax rate April 4.

The BOS is likely to vote on the advertised tax rate Wednesday, April 4 or Wednesday April 11 (the deadline by which the County could then print tax bills for the first half of 2012-13).

Please see this article in the Daily Progress, Proposal increases Albemarle spending, tax rate.

Foley detailed his $311,677,759 budget for fiscal year 2012-13 to the Board of Supervisors on Friday. Though the equalized tax rate generally means no increase in taxes paid for homeowners, Foley said, the rate will allow the county to add EMS service to Pantops; build the Ivy fire station, a new police firing range and the long-planned Crozet Library; and provide a 1 percent raise for county staff.

Please see the ‘Budget Message’ on the County’s website here.

Quoting from the Budget Message, under the heading, Capital Budget Overview:

The CIP continues to be focused on maintaining our existing infrastructure while investing in only those efforts that allow us to accommodate core and necessary services without substantial increases in operational costs. Projects were carefully evaluated and prioritized to optimize the use of limited capital funds to meet the County’s most critical operational and community needs. However, this CIP begins to look to the future by completing the Crozet Library, constructing a Public Safety Firing Range, and providing a fire engine to support the opening of the Ivy Fire Station.

This is just the beginning of the budget process. It still could be easily derailed. Let’s see it through to the end.